Dantius

I posted my epilogue. Basically, Dantius snaps and is exiled, and the Gazers cannot lead themselves effectively without him. They collapse under the weight of their empire and scatter throughout Terrestia. Dantius lives out the rest of his life in isolation, and no longer interferes in Terrestia.

Epilogue for the Eyes: The Eyes continued their policy of isolationism for another short while. However, unbeknownst to them, the strain of ruling over a quarter of Terrestia was beginning to get to Dantius. He withdrew further an further from the rule of the Gazers, until eventually he simply isolated himself in the fortress, refusing to see or speak to anyone. When several rebellions broke out from the peasants of the land, the Eyes suffered bouts of indecisions, and were unable to respond in a quick, coordinated effort, and although the rebellion was put down eventually, it demonstrated that the Eyes could be beaten. The Eyes began to suffer without his leadership, and their foreign policy became more and more erratic. Finally, the last straw was when the New Takers began to make forays past the Eye's defenses into the Burwood. Kallinnin and Revak broke past Dantius' defenses, and their worst fears were confirmed. He had gone completely insane- the shrewdest politician in Terrestia was now a raving lunatic. He was brought before the council, to decide what to do with him. Unable the bring themselves to execute the savior of their race, the Gazers exiled him to a remote isle far to the south of Terrestia, safely removed from politics. Following Dantius's removal from politics, the Triumvirate of Kallinnin, Revak, and Nihsun ruled the Eyes for a time. However, with Nihsun attempting to follow the footsteps of Dantius, and Kallinnin and Revak attempting to expand, the internal friction was too much to bear. Kallinnin and Revak plotted to remove Nihsun from power. Nihsun was soon assassinated, and the blame shifted to Gannendhroth, the young Control Eye who aided Dantius in the conquest of Quessa-Uss. And yet, for all his political subtleties, Kallinnin was removed by Revak simply by denouncing him in front of the Council Kallinnin was summarily executed for treason and murder. Free to rule over the Eyes, Revak soon began a policy of massive, rapid expansion. Declaring war on the New Taker, Neo-Shaper Empire, Doctors, and the Overlord, he began massive campaigns with the depleted Gazer army and the force of Human lifecrafter. However, without Dantius's tactical brilliance, the campaigns succeeded only in creating more violence and combat, capturing little to no land. As internal opposition grew in response to his disastrous leadership, he began strict crackdowns. Eventually, though, immediately following his declaration of war on the only remaining neutral parties, the United Provinces, he was assassinated by a confederation of Eybeasts lead by Farak on the steps of the Council chambers. With the last clear-cut successor of Dantius eliminated, a succession of weak leaders took control of the throne- Farak, then Rhakath, the the exiled Gannendhroth, then Gloral, and finally a succession of minor Eyebeasts. Without a firm power base of a legitimate claim to power, the Eyes suffered greatly, facing massive defeats abroad and strong dissent at home. Finally, the Empire of the Eyes, a group that at one point seemed poised to obliterate all of Terrestia under ocular domination, simply collapsed under the weight of poor leadership, weakened military, and an exodus of brainpower. They had achieved much in their short existence. They had quickly conquered a quarter of Terrestia, and, for a time, had ruled it effectively. They had saved the Eyebeasts and Gazers from extinction, and solidified Dantius' reputation as one of the greatest military and civil commanders of all history. The Gazers themselves simply left. The great fortress lay bare and empty, populated only by the shades of the inhabitants long past, the secrets within still protected by powerful defenses erected so long ago. The Island was devoid of all life, its once-great forests reduced to ash. The Gazers fled to remote locations of Terrestia, carving out small, isolated areas to rule as their own. The Empire of the unwilling had died with Dantius, and never again would it be re-formed. As for Dantius himself, he followed in the tradition of so many other Shapers driven mad by the power within: He built a tower, erected defenses, and lived out the rest of his extended lifespan in peace and isolation, no longer interested in the affairs of pithy humans. He contented himself with the rule of a small isle, even going so far as to crown himself Emperor. But in the end, he had changed nothing. But he didn't care. His time had passed, men like him would no longer be needed. The age of Empires had left Terrestia forever. The age of democracy, the age of the republics, the age of freedom, however, had just begun.

If you need another Windows tester, then you can just PM me and I'll send you my email address. It looks like most of the people testing (aside from Diki) use Mac.

Perhaps we should each post epilogues in the IC thread? Shouldn't be too difficult. Just, like, a paragraph or two detailing how your faction collapsed, or your leaders dies, or some such thing. I'll post mine shortly.

Originally Posted By: Hypnotic Ready to call this dead? Well, Acky's lost interest, Safey seems to be absent, I'm spending less and less time online due to work, you haven't posted, Spddin's not around much, so I guess that the decision is obvious...

Originally Posted By: Randomizer You'll still be the same as when you post your 20,000th post in a few days. FYT

Originally Posted By: ZIPPERLITH ZEPPELINICLES As my students would say: Wait, I thought Thuryl was the teacher...

Shouldn't UBB like, insert auto breaks for long, single word posts like W's?

Originally Posted By: ZIPPERLITH ZEPPELINICLES BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP Are you trying to out BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP me, young man?

Originally Posted By: 12899 tl;dr tl... nvm.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. That is all.

Originally Posted By: Synergy This sentence is interminable. -S- Originally Posted By: Ephesos This post is complaining about people spoiling the fun of the original post. Originally Posted By: ZIPPERLITH ZEPPELINICLES <pre><b>BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP</b></pre> Originally Posted By: Khoth This sentence, however, is not self-referential, and moreover is false. Why has this thread not been locked yet? This post is true.

Free levels! Click to reveal.. Name: Kurex Occupation: Travelling Mage Alignment: Magnificent Bastard Race: Human Deity: Imaunte Strength: 4 Dexterity: 3 Intelligence: 5 (+1) HP: 16/16 (+4) Magic (Evocation): 6 Martial (Sword): 2 Artifice: 2 Diplomacy: 2 Streetwise: 1 Stealth: 1 Perception: 1 Spells: Light (evocation): Creates a small hovering orb of light, or causes an object to glow softly Ice Spray (evocation): Shoots a cloud of sharp ice particles at a target. Somewhat better than Magic Missile. Magic Missile (evocation): Fires a bolt of energy at the target Stun (evocation): Fires a powerful energy pulse at the target, knocking them off balance and stunning them. No damage. Burning Hand(evocation): Projects a sheet of flame from the casters hand. Short range attack. Added a point to INT, and relearned the Burning Hand spell.

Fine, you've prompted me to write an oration. So be it. Originally Posted By: Phanes Sci-Fi is not a holy temple of literary enlightenment, Dantius. And Fantasy is not some empty-headed, soulless drivel either. I claim Sturgeon's law- 95% of scifi is crud, but 95% of everthing is crud. Just because you can produce a few examples of poor scifi (there is a LOT of this. In fact, most scifi is poor literature), does not disprove my point. In fact, let's try a little experiment. Read 1984. Read Foundation. Read Starship Troopers. Read Atlas Shrugged, if it takes you a lifetime. Read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Read Stranger from a Strange Land. Watch Battlestar Galactica. Now, for a change, read the LOTR trilogy. Read the Silmarillion. (These are, in most people's opinion, the greatest fantasy books written, yes? Good.) Tell me, how did your experience change from reading the scifi books? How did your worldview shift? How did your preconceived notions shift? Quite a bit, I would guess. The whole point of scifi, or at least good scifi, is to do this. Bad scifi just entertains. Very bad scifi does neither. Good scifi will change the way you think. Now, let's contrast this to fantasy. Bad fantasy will entertain you, or maybe not. Good fantasy will entertain you, and also maybe teach you a moral lesson while it's at it, usually along the lines of "Throw the ring into the volcano, already". See the difference? Scifi is literature! It will have a lasting impact on humanity and the way we think. Do you think that We, or Brave New World, or 1984 have not affected the world? They have! They have more profoundly affected modern political discourse than any fantasy novel that you can care to name. That is the point. Scifi changes the world to suit the desires of the author. Fantasy does not, which is why the two genres are completely irreconcilable. After having gone upstairs and looked at my collection, the only examples of fantasy matching my criterion for scifi are the Discworld series (satire) and the His Dark Materials trilogy(religion). A fairly strong argument could be made for both series actually being scifi, or at the very least a heavy blend incorporating elements of both. However, I could list off for quite a while with scifi. Dune (envromentalism) Neuromacer (the internet) Pretty much anything Heinlein wrote (lots of stuff) Most of Asimov's robot stuff(sentience/robotics) The Foundation series (predestination amongst a multitude of other things) The Gods Themselves, Nemesis, and Nightfall(various things) Ayn Rand(HUGE political influence) George Orwell (equally large political influence) Huxley (like Orwell, but differently) Fahrenheit 451 (see above) Yevgeny Zamyatin's (sp) We (first dystopian novel, and a thinly veiled commentary on the Bolshevik revolution) Do Androids Dram of Electric Sheep (see: Blade Runner) and don't forget Contact, written by Carl Sagan himself (mainly here because it was written by Carl Sagan). And although I should probably include stuff by whathisface, Orson Scott Card, but I find some of his views so repulsive that I really couldn't bear to put him on the above list (read his Empire and you'll know what I mean) I challenge you all to assemble a list of fantasy books with an equally broad and immense range of influence on all walks of life as the scifi books above. Go ahead, do it.

Originally Posted By: Jawaj Though to be fair, it does kind of apply to The Silmarillion It was initially in reference to the Silmarillion. Originally Posted By: EVERYTHING IS RUINED FOREVER Um, the LOTR books are pretty much the most widely read fantasy or science fiction books in existence. DO NOT LUMP SCIFI AND FANTASY TOGETHER. EVER. You confuse a genre that was specifically designed to pose societal questions in a format where they can be considered without the bias of the current day present with a genre designed purely to entertain, with little to no substance. It is a terrible, terrible crime.

Originally Posted By: Everyone LOTR is awesome! Let's make inane references no one else will get and make us look well-read and elitist! I would like the contents of the past page or so summarized in the context of Foundation or Star Wars or 1984, please.

Originally Posted By: Mordea Remember that no other generals apart from Redmark thought that Dorikas was hiding on the Northern Frontier. Resources would have been channeled elsewhere. And there apparently was some conflict on the surface, since Redmark had a bandaged arm. The surface conflict, IIRC, was less about the Darkside Loyalists than powerful Imperial generals vying for who would be next Emperor. Really, the only incentive to find Dorikas was because it would help the finder politically.

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan I just don't understand why adding a save option 'destroys' the game. Come now, let's play a game of chess. Except now, you can, at any point in the game, go back as many moves as you like and resume the game, able to make different moves based on your advanced knowledge of my strategy and tactics. You can now examine every single move at your leisure, enabling you to have infinite computational depth. Oh, and did I mention that, as your opponent, I have to make the exact same moves every time once I have made them, leaving you free to vary your tactics to suit every situation, and leaving you the complete freedom to retry an sequence of moves for as long as necessary, until you get the perfect combination. Sounds like a blast, right? No. It sounds boring. The ability to replay detracts from the emphasis on the originality of thinking, making the game trite and uninteresting with the ability to replay over and over and over. The entire charm is that you have only one shot, and that you better use it wisely. If you don't like that, fine, go play something else. But, quite frankly, removing the single most important concept of the Roguelike just because you fell like it is probably a bad idea.

...this is (regrettably) the way to play Jeff's games. Lug useless stuff around to sell at a later date, and steal anything that can be stolen. Steal things that can't be stolen, too, just for good measure.

Back on topic, the whole point of a Roguelike game is that you play it in a much different manner. Really, the purpose of the game is to force you to abandon the mentality that "I MUST KILL ANYTHING WITH HP" and instead actually run from fights and use tactics. It reaches the point on levels 20+ in Rogue where I will stare at the screen for minutes on end, before I finally attempt to make a single move, then repeat the process. It is literally the single most cerebral computer game I've played. THe poit is not to win by force, but to win by tactics- somethng that most games after it forgot to include, making the aforementioned mentality the chief worldview amongst gamers. It's a real shame, because the Rogue-ness of Rogue is, IMO, what make it the greatest game ever- nothing else can imitate it. NetHack tries to, but ultimately fails due to its lack of Rogue's simplicity. It really is a pity that we will never see its like again.

Originally Posted By: Lilith ps. your new pdn rules I don't get it.

Originally Posted By: Poached Salmon Yeah. tl;dr

Originally Posted By: Minor Detaur Right, and then the corresponding issue is that Magical Efficiency is good starting in A5, so for 98% of fights in the game you're better off just pumping priest skills more and spamming Smite rather than bothering with archery at all. I distinctly remember that ME absolutely sucked in A5. You must be confusing it with A6.

Originally Posted By: Mordea Even if you end up with a slightly more powerful character? At the disadvantage of not being able to use any spells beyond Firebolt and Minor Heal for the first 90% of the game? Absolutely not worth it.

Is there anyone who would like to play Kurex for the duration of the session? I still can't attend.